The present invention relates to a type of electric vehicle, more particularly, a cart, that uses a rechargeable battery as a power source, and which runs in a hallway or corridor at a low speed and carries elderly people, people in wheelchairs or materials to be carried. The vehicle is used mainly inside buildings of, such as, medical and welfare facilities, and is allowed to enter into rooms or elevators of the facilities to support transportation.
As society ages, the number of people, particularly, senior citizens and people in wheelchairs in medical and welfare facilities is increasing. In addition, the scale of medical and welfare facilities is increasing as well. Given these circumstances, medical and welfare facilities will require such vehicles that can move easily and at low speeds in order to help senior citizens and people in wheelchairs move around inside the medical and welfare facilities by carrying them or a variety of materials. However, in the past, no vehicle that adequately fulfilled those functions could be available.
Taking the above into consideration, the present invention is to improve existing electric vehicles with rechargeable batteries. In particular, the present invention is to provide such an indoor electric vehicle that allows senior citizens and people in wheelchairs to access the vehicle easily. Further, the present invention is to provide such a vehicle to achieve easy loading and unloading of packages or other materials within the building structure of medical and welfare facilities. The vehicle is further designed to move at a low speed in the medical and welfare facility and to help not only senior citizens and people in wheelchairs but also freight transportation.
For this type of vehicle, it was considered, in particular, that the following conditions are required.
The floor of the vehicle should be low.
It should be possible to change direction without making a U-turn in hallways with inadequate width.
It should be able to move sideways and to parallel park at a desired location.
It should have a wide service floor area in a limited floor area of the vehicle.
The vehicle itself should be able to use elevators.
The present invention is to fulfill the above-mentioned conditions and issues.
In the present invention, the xe2x80x9cservice floor areaxe2x80x9d means the floor area on the body base of the electric vehicle that the people who take the service or the freight can occupy.
In the present invention, the height of the service floor area of the vehicle is as low as possible and at the same time, in order to secure the maximum service floor area, the devices, parts and circuits arranged on the bottom of the body base are minimized, In addition, the steering gear system, drive system, driving operation panel, driver""s seat and control circuit are arranged in a dispersed manner as driving operation blocks at the front and back edges of the body base. Moreover, in the present invention, in order to secure the service floor area, it does not employ a fixed driver""s seat, but has a movable driver""s seat. In addition, the rail of the driver""s seat is supported so that it may rotate. The rail of the driver""s seat may be raised when it is not in use, and may be lowered when it is in use, so that it minimizes any hindrance to usage of even edge parts of the service floor area.
In addition, in the present invention, in order to reverse the direction of the vehicle without a U-turn, driving operation blocks are arranged at front and rear ends of a body base of the vehicle. In order to make driving operation at either the front or rear end of the driving operation blocks identical or substantially identical, the appearance of the driving operation blocks is made identical or substantially identical, and the driving operation blocks are positioned symmetrically around a point.
Moreover, in the present invention, a four-wheel independent drive and four-wheel independent steering gear systems are employed so that the vehicle can be driven and moved smoothly and immediately toward any directions, including frontward or backward directions, various diagonal directions, and straight left or right directions. Each of the driving and steering blocks may have a wheel, a driving motor that rotates the wheel directly or with a interconnecting speed reducer, a steering motor that may shift the moving direction of the vehicle, a steering rotator that supports the wheel, the driving motor and the speed reducer, a set of steering gears located between the steering motor and the steering rotator to convert the rotation of the steering motor to steering rotation of the steering rotator.
In addition, in order to simplify the driving operation and avoid incorrect operations, the driving operation panel may include a lever that can direct the front/back movement and left/right movement and a switch that can switch positive/negative phase steering operations. When the lever is set to the xe2x80x9cpositive phase steering operation,xe2x80x9d the front wheel of the vehicle are rotated toward a first direction whereas rear wheels are rotated toward a second direction, which is opposite to the first direction, so that the vehicle may turn. When the lever is set to the xe2x80x9cnegative phase steering operation,xe2x80x9d the front wheels of a vehicle are rotated toward a first direction whereas rear wheels are rotated toward the same first direction, so that the vehicle may move diagonally or in parallel without turning.
Furthermore, in the present invention, to provide a smooth slope between the service floor and the floor of such as a building, the vehicle may have a flap that bridges the service floor and the building floor at either the right or left side of the body base or at both sides thereof.
Also, in the present invention, in order for the vehicle to climb up or down a route having various slope angles easily even though the height of the service floor is extremely low, the center portion of the body base between the front and rear ends may be convexed upward so as not to have the center portion of the body touch the floor. Alternatively, the center portion of the body may be in a foldable structure that can be convexed at least upward at he center portion. The foldable portion may have a supporting wheel.